Hanover
Ordinarily, the Carter Golf Club regular uses a coin bearing a Dallas Cowboys logo as a ball marker. Being the superstitious sort, Pelletier decided to make a switch to counter a slow start in an early-round New Hampshire Amateur match this week. He dumped the Pokes for poker, or at least a chip therein, acquired at an Orleans Country Club tournament in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom at some point in the past.
It’s the closest thing to gambling — at from a golf strategy standpoint, anyway — you’ll see from Pelletier. And he’s been beating the house ever since.
The 30-year-old former golf professional will play in the final of the 115th N.H. Amateur for the first time this morning, the product of quarterfinal and semifinal match-play wins on Thursday. Pelletier outlasted Windham’s Connor Greenleaf, the 2015 state am champ, in a 1-up morning quarter, then defeated Souhegan Woods’ Brendan Gillis, 2 and 1, in an afternoon semi in which he never trailed.
Pelletier will meet Concord’s Matthew Paradis in the 36-hole finale at 8 a.m. today. The Southern New Hampshire University men’s golf junior reached his third consecutive state am final by eliminating clubmate Fletcher Sokul n the quarters, 6 and 5, and Nashua’s Tommy Ethier in the semis, 2 and 1.
“I’m need to go home and take a nap; I’m beat right now mentally,” joked Pelletier, who regained his amateur status about a year ago and is in his first N.H. Am since Eastman in 2010. “In the morning, I played good; yesterday, I played good. This afternoon, we both kind of traded a few bogeys. … It was a grind.”
Be that as it may, Pelletier has been playing some mighty fine golf, and much of it has been toward the tail end of his matches.
Covering his four contests over the past two days, Pelletier is playing 12-under-par golf on Hanover’s hilly par-71 layout. After three bogeys in the first 12 holes of Wednesday’s round-of-32 defeat of The Shattuck’s Jake Hollander, Pelletier went 41 holes before dropping a shot to par on the second hole against Gillis on Thursday afternoon — and he still halved that hole.
And that was after winning the stroke-play medal on Monday with a 68-67—135. It’s hard to beat that kind of steady.
“In the afternoon, I guess the putter just left me,” said Gillis, a Nashua High School North graduate who will be a Wake Forest men’s golf sophomore this autumn. “I didn’t quite hit the same shots in the morning round as I did in the afternoon round, and I obviously paid the price. It would have been nice to be firing on all cylinders, but you’ve got to find a way to win even if you’re not.”
Pelletier has sought all week to use his local knowledge and quick starts to pressure his foes. He did just that by winning the first hole against Greenleaf, only to find himself trailing by a hole as he approached Hanover’s decisive final four.
Nos. 15, 16, 17 and 18 provide ample opportunity to change a match. Three represent the extent of Hanover’s par-5s, while the 16th — part of the club’s much-debated redesign of some 15 years ago — requires precise shots off the tee and into the green to score.
Pelletier has excelled on those holes through the latter half of the week’s matches. Counting his dual wins both on Wednesday and Thursday, Pelletier has 11 birdies and no bogeys on Hanover’s last four holes. He parred all four against Greenleaf while the latter bogeyed 15 and 17 to turn a one-hole lead into a one-hole loss.
“Fifteen is a birdie hole, 16 is a tough hole, and 17 and 18 are obviously weird holes; you never know,” Pelletier said. “If you get a 2-up lead and birdie one of those holes, you pretty much seal it. It puts the pressure on him. I just keeping playing for par and make him have to go on a birdie run to beat me.”
The afternoon date with Gillis worked even better for Pelletier, who had a 2-up lead through six holes, gave it up by the turn and regained it by the 13th.
With the NHGA moving the tee on the downhill par-4 13th forward and reducing the tee-to-green distance to around 350 yards, Pelletier faded a driver that hit the green and left him an eventual two-putt birdie from 20 feet. Gillis struggled to get up and down from just below the abutting 14th tee box and lost the hole.
Gillis also had birdie opportunities from 10 feet on 15 and 11 feet on 16 but couldn’t sink either putt.
“I thought if I could play like I did in the morning on the back nine, I could give him a good run,” Gillis said. “It was those two putts on 15 and 16. The one on 15, I had the read but I didn’t trust my line. On 16, I don’t think I had the read, and I didn’t hit a good putt anyway. If I roll either of those two in, it’s a whole different story going to 17 and 18.”
Paradis will be waiting for Pelletier this morning, trying to finally break through into the N.H. Amateur champion’s column. The top competitor on the SNHU men’s golf team last season, Paradis has had the misfortune of making the last two state am finals only to face soon-to-be-minted pros, Nashua’s Mike Martel last year (a 2-and-1 defeat) and Laconia’s Chris Houston in 2016 (a 4-and-3 loss).
Paradis drubbed Sokul, 6 and 5, in the morning quarters and held off Nashua’s Tommy Ethier, 2 and 1, in Thursday’s semis.
“For the most part, it’s pretty straight up; it’s right in front of you,” Paradis said of the course. “I like the hills. I like the undulations. I grew up kind of playing on a lot of hills like this, so it doesn’t really bother me.”
It certainly hasn’t slowed Pelletier, who has carded no worse than an 18-hole equivalent of 3-under 68 for any of his seven rounds this week. He’s been solid off the tee, competent in the fairways and good enough on the greens. He has rarely gotten into a level of trouble from which he couldn’t escape.
He’s been a pretty safe bet.
“Out here, there’s really nowhere to gamble,” Pelletier said. “I’ve played here so many times, I don’t think that helps you.”
Divots: Paradis and Ethier both got a good look at Hanover when SNHU held its two-day Penman Invitational there in mid-September. Paradis — who counts Lebanon High grad Tyler Silver as a teammate — won the tournament with a two-day 135, and Ethier tied for second at 137. … Greenleaf, who gave up men’s golf at Boston College after two seasons to concentrate on school, graduated from BC this spring. He plans on turning pro in September or October, but hasn’t decided upon where. … Gillis missed the fall season at Wake Forest while recovering from back issues. He saw action in nine matches this spring for veteran coach Jerry Haas, the brother of longtime PGA Tour pro Jay Haas. Both are former Demon Deacons.
Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.com or 603-727-3226.